ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tive in To­ba­go is call­ing for in­dis­ci­pline in schools to be ad­dressed.

The plea from Bradon Roberts, TTUTA’s To­ba­go of­fi­cer, came af­ter a teacher was se­cret­ly record­ed shout­ing and mak­ing de­grad­ing re­marks to­wards stu­dents.

In the one-minute, thir­ty-eight-sec­ond video, which went vi­ral af­ter be­ing re­leased some­time yes­ter­day, the Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary School teacher could be heard say­ing how frus­trat­ed he was over the stu­dents’ be­hav­iour.

The teacher is then heard say­ing he will not waste any more time on them and de­scrib­ing the stu­dents as “poi­son.” The teacher warned the stu­dents that life would teach them a les­son and threat­ened to let oth­er teach­ers know not to waste time teach­ing them as well.

So­cial me­dia users were split about the teacher’s be­hav­iour. While some com­mend­ed him for tak­ing a stand, oth­ers cri­tiqued him for los­ing con­trol of the sit­u­a­tion.

Roberts at first con­demned the teacher’s be­hav­iour, say­ing TTUTA doesn’t con­done ag­gres­sive out­bursts in any form.

How­ev­er, he called for the root of the prob­lem - stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline - to be dealt with.

Roberts said, “We need to ad­dress the un­der­ly­ing is­sue of in­dis­ci­pline in our schools. If we had a teacher not car­ing about what hap­pens to these chil­dren, then they would nev­er get in­to trou­ble be­cause they would leave these chil­dren to do what they want.”

Roberts de­nied ru­mours that the teacher as­sault­ed one of the stu­dents with a chair. He said the sit­u­a­tion was ex­ag­ger­at­ed.

The TTUTA rep­re­sen­ta­tive said it was un­for­tu­nate, as he be­lieved the teacher had hit a break­ing point.

“It is not for us to drag teach­ers through the coals af­ter frus­trat­ing them of that lev­el to go­ing be­yond their break­ing point,” he said.

He called on teach­ers to be care­ful, to ex­er­cise re­straint and to man­age their men­tal health when deal­ing with delin­quen­cy and in­dis­ci­pline.

Roberts al­so called on the pub­lic to ob­serve what he said was a con­cern­ing and un­con­trol­lable trend of delin­quen­cy among the stu­dent pop­u­la­tion.

Sec­re­tary for the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search and Tech­nol­o­gy Zor­isha Hack­ett could not be reached for com­ment on the is­sue.